The present technique relates to methods and apparatus for servicing and maintaining medical equipment. More particularly, the present technique relates to servicing and maintaining medical equipment via radio frequency tags.
Medical practitioners, such as physicians, may employ various types of medical devices to diagnose and treat patients. As one example, imaging devices, such as magnet resonance imaging (MRI) devices, positron emission tomography (PET) devices, computed tomography (CT), or X-ray systems, may produce detailed images of internal tissues and organs of a patient, thereby mitigating the need for invasive exploratory procedures and providing valuable tools for identifying and diagnosing disease and for verifying wellness.
Such medical devices may include any number of components and sub-systems for operation. However, from time to time, the various components and sub-subsystems require maintenance and/or replacement. For example, the performance of the components may degrade over time, thereby reducing the efficacy of the medical device. To restore the medical device to its full potential, a technician may adjust or service the various components. In certain instances, the technician may replace the component in question with a new component all-together.
Typically, records related to the maintenance of the medical device are entered manually. For example, the technician may create a record of the service event manually by entering information regarding the service event into a logbook. However, a follow-up technician (i.e., subsequent technician) may not have access to the previously created record. Accordingly, the follow-up technician may not have access to information regarding the components in the medical device. Difficulties in servicing the medical device may arise if the technician lacks information regarding the components presently in the medical device, i.e., a current hardware configuration. For example, if a manufacturer issues a recall on a certain component, the technician may find it difficult to locate the particular medical devices in need of recall service. Similarly, with no record or inaccurate records of service events, hardware or software configurations, service technicians may be required to spend valuable time to determine the existing equipment and programming present in the system before being able properly to perform servicing. Difficulties in obtaining information regarding the components of a medical device may lead to increased costs and delays.
Accordingly, there is a need for an improved technique for maintaining and servicing medical devices. Particularly, there is a need for a technique that provides information regarding components of a medical device to reduce costs, delays, and difficulties in servicing and maintaining medical devices.